National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) announced its opposition to the textile provisions in HR 6142, declaring that they would “primarily benefit China and imperil tens of the thousands of U.S. textile workers.”
The bill would allow China to displace US yarn and fabric shipments which total billions of dollars to the CAFTA region by reversing a decades old trade policy. This policy, which helped to grow the CAFTA region into a major apparel producer and sustains hundreds of thousands of US textile jobs, would be overturned by granting enormous loopholes to products made in Haiti and Africa made from Chinese yarns and fabrics.
Cass Johnson, President of NCTO, stated: “This bill creates enormous loopholes equal to nearly 600 million square meters – equal to 30 percent of the textile industry's exports to the CAFTA region."
"It is also destabilizing to other CAFTA countries, imperiling 20 percent of total CAFTA exports at a time when the CAFTA countries are struggling to compete."
"And it creates new rules that are so difficult to enforce that China will be the main beneficiary.”
“Trade policy should not be about sacrificing additional US manufacturing jobs so that China can benefit. The US textile industry has already lost 26,000 jobs this year. This poorly crafted bill will cost tens of thousands of additional jobs. In fact, our members have already heard from the importers in the region who have said: 'This bill passes and your orders are gone the next day. We are just waiting to source from China.' "
marketing@alchempro.com
